I'm a fifty-something year old wife, mom to 2 grown kids, and the sole income earner. Follow along as I keep plugging away at daily life.

Monday, July 24, 2017

New week

Not a whole heck of a lot
going on around here. Just trying to get through another week of temps in 90’s
and near 100 some days. No end in sight on it yet, either for the 10 day
forecast. DH says if we wanted this kind of heat and summer we could’ve moved
near his best buddy, who lives in Texas now!

There are a couple of
wildfires nearby for the past week, growing in size by the day, even though
crews are working them. First they had a temporary set up for the crews in the
grade school, but now it’s all at a big tent city set up in a field about 10
miles from here, across from the fire that is up in the mountains. Smokey
smelling near our property, but it’s blowing the opposite direction from town,
so we are not smelling it much. So far the big fire is about 2000 acres.I think they took care of the other one, for
the most part.

Did I mention about DH getting
his Rosuvastatin (Crestor) prescription and feeling sick every day he was
taking it? I had called the pharmacist at CVS in the city to find out the mfg
of what they use. Then I called the pharmacist here in town and it was
different. Both pharmacists say it’s possible that with different mfg’s they
use different inert ingredients and that could be causing this change. He
stopped taking it last week and immediately felt better. The pharmacist here is
town had mentioned he might be able to get it from the same mfg CVS uses, so I
called him up this morning and he said he could and will have it in
tomorrow.Hopefully this will take care
of the problem.

I’m so confused about our
propane billing. We are on an “auto-fill” type of account, which I took to mean
they monitor and refill when it gets down. But there was a notice in the paper
about the “summer fill” and to call by 7/5 to get in on the summer fill
appointments. I called to get it all clarified. She explained we get the summer
rate at any time during the year that our tank falls down to like 25% and they
come fill on their schedule. She also mentioned a bill just got mailed for the
annual $75 tank rental. I said ok, I understand it now, I just wanted to figure
it out and we were still at about 30% left.She then said since we were down to 30% she’d let the delivery guy
know.I got bill in the mail the next
day for the $75 and a few days later the guy came and filled up and gave is a
printout type of bill for 200 gallons at 1.19/gallon and an envelope to mail it
in. So, I mailed a check for $313.Saturday I get an invoice in the mail for a “pre-pay cap contract” for
200 gallons at $1.55. I think this is in addition to the $313 I just paid? The
fine print says “contracted gallons will be filled from October 1, 2017 – March
31, 2018.I’m so confused on how this
all works! So, I’m now assuming if I send in a check for $310.00 that covers
our next fill up and if we only need
another 200 gallons next summer, I won’t get a bill for that fill up? I’ll just
pay another “prepay” amount next July/August? I guess I'll have to call for yet another explanation of how this all works.

We've had a propane tank for 20 years. Sounds like you did a pre-buy to lock in the lower price. If so, you would be correct in that unless you use more than 200 gallons over the Winter, you won't get another bill. We have two 1000 gallon tanks and are planning on topping them off one more time before Winter hits.

The former owner for whatever reason wanted two tanks. No way would we go through that much in a year as we primarily heat with wood. Thankfully the former owner also wanted the tanks hidden completely from view and had them located deep in the woods. Even in the dead of Winter, thankfully they can't be seen.

The neighbors at our property put their tank underground, so that's what we are going to do too. They just have a plastic type lid that accesses the tank underground, is all you can see of it in their yard.